When exploring the new Launchpad feature, at first, it would seem as is it draws it's content primarily from the Programs folder.

It seems to be the case, however, that the Launchpad database is drawn from somewhere else.

For example, when installing a game through Steam, the game itself will not show up in the Programs folder, but will show up in Launchpad. In this particular case, I want it to be in Launchpad. The drawbacks, however, are that I am unable to remove the game from Launchpad and am unable to change the icon.

Thanks, this indeed is the location of the database, although not every table is really readable. Apps seem to be primarily stored in the table apps and renaming there should probably work. Editing the icons, though, should prove to be a bit harder.
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Aron RotteveelJul 25 '11 at 6:33

Apologies for tacking this on to a 2-year old thread, but FWIW the value for some-hex-name is stored in ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.dock.another-hex-name.plist as "LaunchPadDBName".

It seems like the number itself is not important, and may in fact be random; but, it may probably needs to conform to the UUID format. Changing this value for a user, then logging in, will result in a new .db being created if it does not already exist.

You can use this to set multiple accounts to use a pre-defined LaunchPad configuration, etc.